Yesterday I made it 25 miles. My longest stretch by far. I headed out at 8am and my brother and his friends, Jake and Tomas, came up from Phoenix to walk with me in the afternoon. When they arrived, I’d already walked 15 miles. I was making good time, partly because I didn’t have to carry my giant pack. My hosts in Heber invited us to stay in their rental cabins. So, we dropped off my pack that morning in an incredibly charming cabin: leather couches, ruffled curtains, fireplace and elk antler door handles.
Without the pack, I felt light as air, and with the help of my walking companions, the last 10 miles were a joy. I love walking, and better yet, walking with company. Despite a narrow shoulder that forced us to trudge through brambles and tumble weeds, a very angry sunburn (I forgot to put on sunblock) and a flock of hungry mosquitos, it was one of my most enjoyable walking days.
Thank you Cam, Jake and Tomas!
Love,
-Laura
Hi Laura
Nice trip idea. I heard about your blog on Metafilter
You’re like a sort of tech-modified Peace Pilgrim. She’s always been a great hero to me.
Stories like hers, and yours, which remind us of the essential goodness that most people carry in their hearts, are too few these days.
There’s a whole world of people treating each other decently, which sometimes feels absent or hidden behind the media facade of 24/7 horror coverage.
We’ve bought into a lot of arbitrary, manufactured divisions in our culture. By blatantly exposing repetitive, sequential random acts of kindness among strangers of widely varied background, you expose our universal humanity and the common decency so lacking in much of today’s vulgar media.
Thank you for doing this. And good on ya, for just getting out there and walking. I do it all the time. Walking is a big part of my happiness. I do it for fun, and it keeps me healthy. Human beings are awesome walking machines.
Coast of Michoacan